US Announces Investing $254mn To Decarbonize Domestic Manufacturing

US New Initiative Aims To Bring Energy Efficient, RT Heat Pump By 2027

The Department of Energy (DOE) of the United States (US) recently announced that it would invest $171 million in 49 projects across 21 states. This announcement supported United States (US) President Biden’s ‘Investing In America’ agenda.

The announcement stated, “This investment aimed to give new funding opportunity to advance next-generation technologies to cut emissions and support President Biden’s efforts to build a clean energy economy.” DOE also announced, “Applications are open for an $83 million funding opportunity to decrease emissions from hard-to-decarbonize industrial sectors, representing roughly 30 percent of total US carbon emissions.” 

It added, “The announcement can help advance the innovative technologies we need to lower costs and improve energy efficiency in America’s factories and industrial centers,” US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said. “Ensuring America’s industrial sector and its robust workforce remain strong and competitive is key to maintaining our nation’s edge as a global economic powerhouse and accelerating President Biden’s vision of a strong, made-in-America clean energy future.”

Accelerating Emissions-Reducing Technologies

It added, “Managed by DOE’s ‘Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office’, the 49 selectees can support high-impact, applied research, development, and pilot-scale technology validation and demonstration (RD&D) projects aiming to reduce energy usage and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from industrial subsectors, such as the chemicals industry which accounts for about 40 percent of all industrial energy use and emissions in the United States. The projects are estimated also to advance cross-sector industrial decarbonization approaches to tackle challenges common across various industries.”

It mentioned, “Of the projects selected, 16 can be led by private industry, 22 by academic institutions, three by non-profit organizations, and eight by DOE National Laboratories.”

Selected projects can advance decarbonization technologies in the following areas:

• Decarbonizing Industrial Heat (10 projects, $25.3 million): Selected projects can accelerate high-impact technology innovations for equipment and components to decarbonize thermal processes across the industrial sector.
• Low-Carbon Fuels Utilization R&D (6 projects, $20.7 million): Selected projects are estimated to focus on research, development, validation, and demonstration needed to accelerate the commercial readiness of hydrogen-fueled process heating technology and low-carbon-input, flexible CHP (combined heat and power).
• Exploratory Cross-Sector R&D (5 projects, $14 million): Selected projects, partially funded by DOE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office, claim to focus on emerging R&D areas for technologies and materials that enable industrial decarbonization and significantly increase energy efficiency.
• Decarbonizing Chemicals (6 projects, $30.5 million): Converting between chemical building blocks to create consumer and industrial products, such as fuels, polymers, and paints, is incredibly energy intensive. Selected projects claim to focus on decarbonization technologies for high-volume chemicals with significant CO2 emissions, including advanced separation processes, advanced reactor systems, and dynamic catalyst science.
• Decarbonizing Iron and Steel (7 projects, $37 million): Selected projects, partially funded by DOE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office, can focus on decarbonization opportunities in iron and steel production, including innovative manufacturing technologies to enable decarbonization; electrification of existing manufacturing processes; overcoming challenges associated with utilizing hydrogen in steelmaking; and addressing scrap contaminants in recycling.
• Decarbonizing Food and Beverage Manufacturing (5 projects, $11.1 million): Selected projects can focus on low- and zero-carbon solutions for process heating, cooling, and refrigeration in various energy-intensive food and beverage operations.
• Decarbonizing Cement and Concrete (5 projects, $20 million): Selected projects will address cement’s direct process emissions and can accelerate the commercial readiness of emerging low-carbon or net-zero technologies for the cement and concrete industry that provide energy savings and other benefits such as reduced complexity and improved process efficiency and optimization.
• Decarbonizing Forest Products (5 projects, $12 million): Selected projects will focus on decarbonization opportunities in energy-intensive drying, paper forming, and pulping processes.

It added, “Selection for award negotiations is not a commitment by DOE to issue an award or provide funding. Before funding is issued, DOE and the applicants will undergo a negotiation process, and DOE may cancel negotiations and rescind the selection for any reason during that time.”